He permed me!

As usual, after deciding to grow my hair out and REALLY GIVE IT A TRY THIS TIME!, I determined it was not working. It's thin, flips out weird on one side, and I'm too lazy and cheap to make it look good when it's "long," which for me is about chin length. Before cutting it though, I decided to try perming it--that's what old ladies with thinning hair do, right? And I felt I had been losing a lot of mine.

The stylist made me feel better by commenting that I had many areas of new growth. She asked, "Have you been through a stressful time recently? Because that can really affect your hair, and it looks like you've lost some." Yes. My husband and I had been through some difficult months in our marriage prior to my August 2018 appointment. Turns out the racing thoughts and up-and-down emotions of all kinds did a number on the health of my hair. Duh! Here's how I looked the day of the perm:

I was glad I tried it. Doing my hair was easy, but the ends were sparse, and it wasn't a look I wanted to stick with. My sister gave me a cut and color during Thanksgiving break--the before and afters are below. Short hair it is!

Bonus perm pic: red-faced and sweaty after playing pickleball, I decided to run a pick through my hair and then took a selfie because I looked so kooky:

P.S. The title of the post is from the movie Troop Beverly Hills with Shelley Long, which was very popular when I was around 10 years old. Remember it?

Thanksgiving 2018

Since we were going to LA for Christmas, we spent Thanksgiving in Utah. We decided to drive the southern route and stop in Zion National Park early in the week, where we hiked Lower Emerald Pool, the first part of the Narrows, had lunch at the hotel that's in the park, and enjoyed a memorable moonlit walk back to our car from the shuttle at the end of the day.

Thanksgiving Day was decently warm, so some of us went up the canyon in the morning:

The boys helped Gramps collect helicopter leaves to throw off the bridge, a fun tradition:

My sister and I (ironically) doing "heart hands:"

My Husband told us to give the camera our best annoyed and frustrated look. He said my sister won:

A few of the girl cousins coloring the kids' tablecloth: 

I lost at Yahtzee. This really is one of my favorite pictures of my mom and me:

Here's another recent one I love that also demonstrates how we both can do Elvis lips:

I introduced some of the kids to Twister after getting a haircut from my sister: